


The Most Likely Incomplete List of Odd Things About Louis Tomlinson

by wildestoftales



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 21:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4035349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildestoftales/pseuds/wildestoftales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something decidedly odd about Nick's neighbour. It's not just the admittedly huge crush Nick has on him, either. So, Nick starts writing a list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Likely Incomplete List of Odd Things About Louis Tomlinson

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leighbot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leighbot/gifts).



> Well, you can probably already tell which prompt I chose! I saw it and was immediately sure I needed to write it, even though I'd never seen the show you wanted it to be based on. I binge-watched a few episodes, though. I hope this is what you wanted and that you enjoy. :)
> 
> Shoutout - as always - goes to my wonderful beta that I can't name just yet. You're an angel for helping me with my fics and you leave the funniest comments. It's wonderful to work with you. 
> 
> That's all from me for now. Enjoy! :)

#### 1\. His relationship with Pig.

Yes, Nick knows this one is a bit hypocritical. It's also the first thing he notices about Louis and that's why it goes at the top of the list anyway.

Nick meets Louis on a Wednesday just after getting home from the show and the production meetings afterwards. It had been a good show, lively and full of energy. Now that it’s over and the small bout of adrenalin Nick still gets has left him, he feels bone-tired. A trip to the pub with his friends the night before probably hadn’t helped matters. It's his own fault, really – or, rather, Aimee's. She never takes no for an answer.

“One day I'll grow up and act like a responsible adult. It's bound to happen at some point, right?” he asks a tail-wagging Pig as he puts the leash on her for her daily walk. She just keeps doing it. He's taking that as a yes.

The fresh air during their walk drives out the grogginess a little. It's probably more the rain that London is infamous for than the fresh air itself, but oh well. Whatever does the trick.

He's not properly paying attention to what Pig is doing, lost in his own thoughts that aren't really about anything at all, when she suddenly stops, almost tripping him up.

“Well, thanks for that,” he mutters to himself and looks down. She's not only stopped but is also sitting down, her gaze fixed intently on something, her tongue hanging out of her mouth slightly in concentration.

He follows her gaze to a young guy a few steps away from them with light brown hair that's sticking to his forehead and bright blue eyes. He's definitely shorter than Nick and dressed fairly non-descriptively – jeans, some band shirt, scruffy trainers, and a messenger bag. What's more striking than that – he really just looks like an ordinary university student, maybe in his second or third year – is that he's staring right back at Pig just as intently.

That is, all things considered, fairly odd.

He has to pull on the leash for a moment until Pig gets up again and happily follows him over to the guy. He's pretty gorgeous, up close, Nick has to admit.

“Think my dog just spontaneously fell in love with you,” Nick says for lack of anything else to say.

The guy drags his gaze away from Pig and smiles warmly at Nick. It's a nice smile. Pig has good taste, at least.

“She's lovely.” The guy crouches down and pats Pig's back, completely ignoring that she's wet from the rain. “How are you doing?”

Nick doesn't usually like when strangers pat Pig without asking but he has to admit that Pig seems happy as anything. Plus, this stranger is cute, so he'll let it pass. Although he does briefly wonder how he could tell that Pig is a girl almost immediately. Maybe it's a knack. Some people can predict the weather, maybe this guy can tell animal's sexes apart without checking.

Pig lets out a sound that's not a bark but sounds more like she's actually answering his question.

He laughs. “You're proper annoyed?” He glances up at Nick. “She thinks you should have waited with your walk until it stopped raining.”

Nick is not endeared. At all.

“You were the one who kept whining at the door, Pig, don't put this one on me,” Nick replies which may not be entirely true. It's also possible that Pig had been having a quiet nap on the couch – which she's not allowed to be on, she knows that – when Nick had woken her up to go out.

The guy doesn't stop patting his dog. “You named her Pig?” he asks, frowning in confusion. “Is it usual to name your pet after other animals?”

It's a bit of an odd question. Nick can't help but laugh. “I hope not! I tried to be creative when naming her.”

Pig rubs her head against the guy's thighs. She really is in love, it seems. Nick can't blame her even a little bit.

“She likes her name,” the guy says decisively as if Pig had personally told him.

Nick doesn't answer right away, too busy trying to come up with a smooth way to ask for the guy's name – and, ideally, number – instead. They're already on the topic of names, it shouldn't be too hard. He draws a blank. The guy speaks up again.

“I think she wants to go home. I don't really get why you don't like the rain, Pig. It's fascinating! Like, there's just water falling from the sky, that's incredible.”

Nick shares a look with Pig.

“You are English, right? I mean, you do sound English, northern if I had to guess, but I've never met an Englishman who called rain incredible.”

Nick isn't particularly fond of rain which is the normal opinion to have on the issue, he thinks. It's always cold and miserable. Plus, it ruins his hairstyle. He's sure his hair has turned slightly curly by now but he refuses to think about it. The guy, on the other hand, looks like the rain isn't bothering him at all. The hair plastered to his forehead only enhances his features. It's all a bit unfair, really.

They're both drenched. Nick should probably actually take Pig inside, but he finds he doesn't want to, not just yet.

Despite what the guy says, Pig doesn't look like she wants to move, either. She's made herself quite comfortable sitting on his trainers. He doesn't seem to mind at all, just fondly smiles down at her as if this is a thing she does to him all the time.

“I am!” the guy insists, oddly defensive, frowning. “I'm from,” he pauses for a moment. “Doncaster. In Yorkshire.”

“Good old Donny,” Nick says. He's never in his life been to Doncaster.

The guy smiles.

They keep standing in the rain, just chatting. Nick finds out that he's at uni, studying for a nursing degree. He also apparently doesn't listen to the radio at all. Nick isn't exactly above trying to impress cute boys with his semi-fame but that's out of the question, then. He's just trying to make up for it by being extra charming and funny when the guy's phone chirps with a message. It's the standard android message tone, if Nick's not mistaken. The guy jumps a little. Nick laughs at him.

He tells Nick to shut it before checking his message.

“My flatmates are wondering where I am,” he says, dropping the phone back into his pocket. “I'm literally so close to home, I just live over there, but I got stuck here.”

Just as Nick is wondering how a student can afford to live in his admittedly posh neighbourhood – even if he does share with flatmates – he crouches down again to pat Pig. She's delighted. “Just because of you lovely girl.”

Nick rather thinks it's more his fault but he'll let Pig have this one.

“Which house number?” he asks.

“132,” is the answer, coming with a pair of raised eyebrows.

Nick can't help the bright smile on his face. “Well, hello neighbour. I live in 132, too. Third floor, to be precise. You're new, aren't you? I haven't seen you around before. Something tells me I would have noticed you.”

The guy frowns. “No. I'm. I mean, I've lived here for ages. Second floor.” The smile returns so instantly that it's almost like the frown was never on his face in the first place. “You should get your eyesight checked out.”

“Don't get cheeky now,” Nick warns him as they both start walking towards number 132. “I'm Nick, by the way. Or Grimmy, whatever your prefer,” because they've been talking for a while now and he still hadn’t come up with a smoother way to find out the guy's name and he really wants to know.

“Oh.” The guy laughs. “I forgot to ask for your name. Just kept calling you Tall Human in my head. Which one is your name, then? Nick or Grimmy?”

“Well, it's Nick but almost everyone calls me Grimmy.”

The guy's grin is teasing. “Alright, Nick. I'm Louis.”

Pig barks happily like it's the best name she's ever heard. (Nick wonders if she even has a concept of human names at all. He can't fault her for her enthusiasm, though.) Naturally, she and Louis are best friends from that day onwards.

– 

#### 2\. He's forgetful.

“It's not even six in the morning,” Nick says to Louis when he runs into him just as he's stepping down the stairs to the second floor on his way out of the building. “You're a student. Why are you awake? Where are you going? This isn't natural.”

Louis shoots him a surprised look, stepping out of his front door. “Is it?” like he hasn't noticed that it's half five in the bloody morning on a Tuesday. “Time, huh?” like that's a thing that just happens. Like that's a thing people just say like when they're complaining about the weather or delayed trains.

Louis can be pretty odd at times.

“Anyway, good morning to you, too, Nicholas. Wonderful to see you.”

Not even Nick is this cheery in the morning and he’s actually had a job that requires him to get up at this time for ages now. Theoretically, he should be used to it.

“Morning,” he replies. “Where are you going, then?”

“Places,” Louis replies with a charming smile. “And you?”

“My job.”

“Oh, yeah. That radio thing, right? Do you have a lot of listeners? Do a lot of people listen to the radio, in general?”

Nick rolls his eyes. He had told Louis ages ago that he's, well, not entirely unknown in the radio world in some misguided attempt to impress him. It didn't impress him. Not even a bit.

“A few,” Nick replies mildly. He desperately needs a coffee.

“Come on, then, Lewis,” he adds after a moment when Louis is still just standing in front of his open door, looking at Nick. “Some of us have a job to get to.”

“Don't be grumpy.”

Nick watches Louis cross the hallway and walk down the first few stairs. It's only then that Louis notices that Nick isn't following him. He stops and turns around.

“I thought you had a job to get to?”

Nick looks at Louis, then at the still wide open door of his flat that he hasn't closed, and then back at Louis. Although Louis follows his gaze, he doesn't pick up on what is confusing Nick.

There's a moment of silence.

“Do your flatmates appreciate the open door? Do they want some fresh hallway air? Or are you trying to get mugged so you can cash in the insurance money?”

Louis looks confused.

“I'm just trying to understand your thought process! You left your door open.”

“Still no need to talk such rubbish,” Louis replies with an eye roll, walking back to his door and shutting it with a bang. “I forgot. It's early.”

Nick isn't one to judge, especially not when it comes to early morning forgetfulness. He once walked all the way out of the door and to his car and only then noticed that he had forgotten to put on a shirt.

“Now who's grumpy? Come on, favourite neighbour.”

Louis rolls his eyes but smiles anyway as he walks down the stairs next to Nick.

“I really need a coffee and now you've made me late and I won't have time to get one.” Nick is trying to ignore the way their hands keep knocking into each other. It's a bit dizzying to think about how fast they've become good friends, over the course of only a few weeks, and how very attracted Nick still is to Louis. He doesn't even know if Louis leans that way.

“You shouldn't be drinking coffee anyway,” Louis says as he holds the front door open for Nick. “It has caffeine and that's not good for the human body at all. You're basically very slowly poisoning yourself.”

Stepping out, Nick bumps into Louis who hasn't stepped far enough away and holds onto his shoulder in an effort to steady himself. It takes a moment until his tired mind manages to convince his hand to let go again.

Louis just follows him in the direction of his car. Nick still wonders where in the world he's actually going and why he won't tell him.

“Getting lectured by a student on what's good for my body,” Nick laments. “That's a new low. Aren't you living off pot noodles and alcohol? Coffee is a wonderful gift by the gods who want me to make it through the day in one piece.”

Louis laughs. “You're always so weird,” he says. Which is a bit rich, coming from Mister I-didn’t-even-notice-it's-half-five-in-the-morning, “Have you ever seen me drunk? Or heard me talk about getting drunk?”

Now that Louis mentions it, Nick hasn't.

“I haven't. That's odd. Are you even human? What student doesn't get drunk? I got plastered, like, every night back in the day.”

Way to make himself sound old.

Louis' eyes grow wide. He abruptly stops walking and stares at Nick without saying a word, looking proper spooked.

Nick puts a hand on his shoulder. “Lou?”

There's no noticeable reaction. Nick isn't even sure what he's done. Maybe Louis has problems with alcohol? He might not like people drinking or hearing it mentioned so casually.

“Keep breathing. I was kidding. You don't have to get drunk. It's not actually a good thing to, uh, get drunk all the time, I guess,” he assures him, mostly taking a stab in the dark at what words will reassure him. Louis lets out a long breath.

“No,” he says slowly. Then he laughs. “Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. I only just, uh, I remembered I forgot something. I forgot to take something with me.”

Nick is about to say something, not even really sure what exactly but it doesn't matter because Louis interrupts him before he even manages to open his mouth. “Have a good day doing the radio.”

He turns around and leaves Nick standing there.

– 

About ten minutes after Nick gets home from his after-work lunch date with Pixie and Daisy, there's a knock on his door. It's Louis, holding a freshly brewed cup of coffee and wearing a shy smile.

Nick is a bit fucked.

– 

Niall doesn't quite understand the point of watching the X Factor auditions. He sings along passionately every time he recognises a song. It ends up being almost every performance. More often than not one or more of his flatmates will join him.

At first, when Louis had invited him for an evening in with his flatmates, Nick had admittedly been hesitant. He only knows the other four guys who live with him from Louis' stories or a few exchanged words on the staircase. He wondered if it would be awkward to hang with uni students – something that seems so far back for himself, even though it wasn’t all that long ago – and if they’ll notice his slight crush on their best mate. It's already at the stage where his own friends are teasing him about it at any given opportunity.

He hadn’t even known what to bring, the usual nice bottle of wine being out of the question due to Louis' weird reaction to him mentioning alcohol a few days back. Nick is steering well clear of that topic for now. In the end, he had settled for a few bags of crisps. He had reasoned that it would be alright for “just a quiet night in with the lads”, as Louis had put it. Nick can totally be lad-y if need be. He can be the most lad of them all.

Niall had finished all three bags before the first adverts had started, with a little help from his flatmates.

“I don't like how mean they're being,” Liam says over the sounds of Simon Cowell criticising an atrociously dressed student-aged guy with an almost painful voice rather harshly. It's not like Nick can really hear what Simon is saying because Niall and Harry won't stop singing the chorus of Uptown Funk, the guy's audition song.

“That's the point,” Zayn says from where he's sitting in the only armchair they own. Nick, Liam, and Louis are sharing the couch while Harry and Niall are sitting on the floor, their backs to the coffee table. Nick and Louis' legs are touching all the way down their thighs. Nick doesn't know if it's because of simple proximity or because Louis deliberately wants them to. He's not obsessing about it. At all. “It's all got to do with establishing social connection and security. On the one hand, they want people to think 'thank god I'm not that poor sod' or even something along the lines of 'what a loser, good thing I'm above people like him'. On the other hand, a group of people can bond over, simply put, making fun of others.”

Liam nods with a thoughtful expression.

Nick laughs. “Well, that got serious. What are you doing again, something with psychology?”

Zayn frowns, his eyes flitting over to Louis. “Uh, yeah. You got me.”

“Zayn here is the smartest one of us,” Louis says conspiratorially, even leaning into Nick a little and shooting him a cheeky grin.

Looking away from the next contestant telling all about their horrible childhood or something equally tragic, Harry turns around to frown at all of them. “Heey! I'm smart, too. I'm smarter than Zayn. Grimmy, tell them I'm smart.”

Nick rather likes Harry, so he says, “Harold here is extremely smart. The smartest, in fact. He can count to one hundred without help.”

It's Niall who laughs the loudest at that. Harry just pouts. “I _am_ smart. Did you know that I can differentiate almost one thousand different types of insects.”

There's a pause.

“Why?” Nick asks. Because, really. Why?

“We had to study it for the--,” Harry starts the same time as Louis says hastily, “He's just exaggerating. It's one hundred at best.”

“One hundred is still too many,” Nick says, shuddering. “I hate insects. They're all, I don't know, leggy.”

“You're all leggy,” Louis mutters under his breath.

Nick raises his eyebrows at him but Louis just smirks back. He's a menace, really.

After a while, Zayn dozes off, and even Niall stops singing along to every single song. It's just every second or third one now. The guy really loves music.

“Someone should wake up Zayn so he can explain to me why they all keep talking about their tragic life stories,” Louis complains grumpily, gesturing at the screen where a young girl describes how hard it had been to grow up as the only girl in a family with three brothers.

“Well, maybe so we'll feel bad for them? Or feel better about our own sorry lives.” Nick can over-analyse, too.

“But it's not even all that tragic! Like, I only have sisters, too, but you don't see me crying about it.”

Nick looks at Louis from the side. He remembers quite clearly Louis telling him about the twin babies his mum had a few months back, even showing him pictures of them. One of them is a baby boy, Nick is completely sure.

“You don't,” Nick says, confused.

“I don't what?”

“You have a brother. You showed me a picture of him trying to eat a sock.”

Louis bites down on his lower lip as he stares at Nick. “I've got Lottie, Fizzy, Daisy, and Phoebe. They're all girls.”

“But you said--”

“Earnest and Doris, Lou. That's who he means,” Liam interrupts with urgency in his voice.

“Oh, yeah. The babies. I forgot,” Louis says, his eyes flitting between Liam and Nick. “They've only been around for a while, I keep forgetting them,” he says, shrugging in a 'what can you do' kinda way.

Sometimes Louis really is an odd duck. Nick can be forgetful at times, too, but he's never met someone who just forgot about the existence of their own siblings.

“You're useless,” he says, shaking his head fondly.

“Oh, shut up,” Louis tells him.

– 

#### 3\. His feet are unusually large.

There's a knock on the door just as Nick disposes of the last take away containers in the rubbish.

“It's open,” he calls because it can only really be Louis. Just a second later, he hears the door open and close again.

“Pig is asleep,” Louis complains upon entering the kitchen. “She didn't even react to me saying hello.” 

“Aww, poor Louis. Getting rejected is hard.”

“Shut up,” Louis says, rolling his eyes. “I smell food. I _see_ food. You got enough for me?”

Nick carries the two plates over to his kitchen table.

“I always do, don't I?”

“You do,” Louis agrees, coming to a halt in front of Nick. He takes the plates from him to put them down on the table. “Niall is already mad at me for preferring your shitty takeaway to his culinary masterpieces.”

“It's not always takeaway. I can cook, too! You know that,” Nick protests.

Louis laughs at him. “I know. And I told him. I also told him that someone needs to go over daily to check you've not dropped dead yet. It's pretty likely, considering your age, you know.”

“I have no idea why I even like you. You're a monster.”

“Am not.”

Louis walks over to take the cutlery from Nick.

“Why are you barefoot?” Nick asks when he notices Louis isn’t wearing any socks.

Louis shrugs. “I don't like socks. They're weird. I'd rather feel the ground.” He wiggles his toes a little. Nick is still staring.

“You know, I never noticed, your feet are quite large.”

Louis laughs at him but Nick continues, “Like, compared to the rest of you. You're so short. I had expected you to have small feet but you just don't.”

“You're short,” Louis mutters. “I didn't choose this body.”

“None of us did, love. Show your hands.”

Louis shoots him a questioning look but obediently puts the cutlery down by the sink and holds up his hands. Nick aligns his with Louis'.

“See, that's how it should be. Tiny hands on a tiny Louis.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Louis is intently staring at their hands. Nick's fingers are longer than Louis' which is no surprise at all.

“Your hands are quite large,” he says, echoing what Nick had stated about his feet.

Nick almost has to bite his tongue to keep from saying something too laden with innuendo.

“It just seems impractical. They're too large, I think. What if you need to do something delicate? You'll break something with these. And you probably can't fit them into anything.”

Louis shakes his head as if greatly disappointed which is a reaction Nick has never gotten in his life concerning the size of his hands. Not once.

“It's like, what did evolution think when giving you these hands? They're too big.”

There's a twinkle in Louis' eyes that lets Nick know he's having him on.

Louis' hands are still just there, pressed to his, palm to palm. There's a moment where neither of them do anything but just stare as if seeing them for the first time, then Nick drops one of his hands. With the other one he grabs Louis' hand in his, just because it's there and he wants to.

It's a bit of a gamble, considering he still doesn't know anything specific about Louis' sexuality. He's never mentioned either a past girlfriend or boyfriend.

Louis looks up at him and arches an eyebrow. Then he holds onto Nick's hand properly and drops both his free hand and the one that Nick is holding to normal thigh-level instead of raised in the air.

Nick exhales. “Come on,” he says, grabbing the knifes and forks from where Louis had dropped them. “Food's getting cold.”

Smiling, Louis lets himself be pulled towards the table.

– 

#### 4\. His flatmates. Half of them, at least.

“See you tomorrow, Fifi.”

“Wait a second,” she calls him back just as he's walked past her to the lifts. “There's two guys waiting for you in the office kitchen. Said they're your neighbours and want to talk to you?” She waggles her eyebrows because of course she, along with everyone else, knows about Louis. And likes to make fun of Nick for it.

Nick can't imagine a reason for Louis to be at the studio and even less one for why he would bring one of his flatmates but he thanks her and turns around again to head over to the kitchen.

Turns out it's not Louis.

It's Liam and Zayn. Liam is sitting on a chair by the small table while Zayn is poking through their cabinets as Nick walks in.

“Um,” he says because he doesn't know what to say at all.

“Hi, Nick,” Liam greets him. Zayn nods and lets the cabinet door fall closed as he turns around to face Nick in the doorway.

“Not that I don't like you but you're not the neighbour I was expecting to randomly show up at my work.”

“That's the problem,” Zayn says, taking a step closer. He's anything but broad-shouldered and he's smaller than Nick, but he still feels the urge to take a step back just by the look on his face. He resists it and takes a step further into the kitchen instead.

“Is it?” he says brightly. “I didn't even know you guys knew where I worked.”

“Not hard to find out,” Liam says. “Don't you want to sit down?”

Nick doesn't point out that it's his workplace where he should be inviting people to sit, not the other way around. This situation is weird and awkward enough as it is.

“We wanted to talk you,” Liam says when Nick has taken a seat opposite him. Zayn is leaning against their fridge, arms crossed.

“That's nice and all but you could have walked up one floor and I would have been right there,” Nick reasons. “Just seems like a bit of an effort to come all the way here.”

Liam shrugs. “Louis hangs around you all the time.”

“He does.” Nick can't exactly lie. Louis does hang around him all the time, or he hangs around Louis. They spend a lot of time together. Every day, basically. They've even progressed to more hand-holding and cuddling while watching TV. It's definitely a thing, there's no denying it. Nick doesn't even want to deny it, really.

“And he's not exactly supposed to witness this,” Zayn says.

Oh god. Are they gonna beat him up? He's useless in a fight, especially when it comes to two against one. Liam, at least, looks like he can throw a proper punch. They're in a public space, though. There are people milling about everywhere, frequently walking past the kitchen. Surely they would have enough sense not to do it where anyone can see, right?

“Alright,” Nick says, already tired of this game. “Are you guys here to threaten me off him or something? Wouldn't have pegged you for homophobes, but oh well, life.”

It's a bit unfair, if you ask Nick. He's getting a bollocking and he hasn't even gotten to kiss Louis yet. That's just all backwards.

“What's that?” Liam asks.

“Someone who is against same-sex relationships,” Zayn answers, quick as anything. “We're not,” he says to Nick.

“Why would anyone be against it, it doesn't concern them, and from an evolutionary point--”

Zayn shoots Liam a look. Liam shuts up.

“We don't care about that. We want to know what you know about Louis.”

Nick raises his eyebrows at him. “What I know about him? Surely you know more about him, you've known him for years.”

This is all getting weirder by the minute.

“Are you guys secret agents or something? Is Louis, like, a goal? Someone you need to get out of the way? What's going on?”

“No,” they both say at once. 

“We're just concerned friends, that's all,” Liam adds in a softer voice.

“Alright,” Nick finds himself saying yet again. “That's lovely but we haven't really done anything, Louis and me, I mean. And, really, he's a grown-up, so is this really necessary?”

Zayn shrugs. “We're a bit over-protective, you could say.”

Yeah. Nick can tell.

“It's nothing against you, we like you,” Liam assures him.

Nick doesn't quite believe that, although he did actually like both of them before this.

“What do you want from Louis?” Zayn asks.

Sighing, Nick drags a hand through his hair, not caring in the least that he might mess it up.

What is he even supposed to say to that? The truth, which would be a nice long snog and maybe a bit more. Whatever Louis is willing to offer, really. What do they expect him to say – that he's actually just friends with him to steal all his money and annoy his friends?

“This sounds like a conversation I should have had at 16 with my first boyfriend's parents and not here and now with you. Or one I should be having with, you know, Louis.”

They don't say anything, so Nick adds, “I'm gonna say it again, nothing has even happened between Louis and me. You're worrying over nothing.”

Not that Nick doesn't wish it was different. This whole conversation, the two of them showing up at Nick's work, is a strong indicator for Louis at least theoretically being interested in someone with a dick, though. Potentially even Nick himself. If he had no interest in Nick at all, surely his friends would know and wouldn't bother? Or maybe they want to warn Nick off, precisely because they know Louis has no interest whatsoever. That seems unlikely, though. Louis is perfectly capable of pushing Nick away himself, if he feels the need for it.

“We really aren't,” Liam says, more to Zayn than to Nick.

“Please answer the question,” Zayn says, somewhat kinder now.

“I like him,” Nick says because that much is obvious to anyone. “I can't say I want to only be friends with him but I'm not trying to, like, get anything from him? Whatever there is to get, I don't know. And I'm not trying to turn him or something if he's not interested in guys. I'm no threat whatsoever. I'm the least threatening person you'll ever meet, promise.”

Liam and Zayn are looking at each other instead of Nick.

“I think he really doesn't know,” Zayn says.

“Know what?”

They both startle.

“How to be mean to Louis,” Liam says quickly. “Like, how to use him? We were worried about that.”

Nick doesn't believe him. This is all too shady and weird.

“Alright,” he says for the third time. “So are you satisfied? Not gonna beat me up or anything?”

Zayn frowns. “We'd never hurt a human being. Or any other living being.”

Nicks nods. “So, since we all live in the same building and you're here anyway, want an awkward ride with me in my car to end this pleasant encounter with?”

They do.

– 

#### 5\. He does NOT deal well with being ill.

“I shouldn't have felt bad for you in the first place,” Nick says with a great sigh. “Get your feet off my coffee table.”

“No,” Louis says, sounding rough.

“Like, honestly. Your flatmates were absolutely, one hundred percent right to kick you out,” Nick continues. He sits down next to Louis who immediately slumps down until his head is pillowed on Nick's shoulder. Pig is lying next to Louis, enjoying her daily patting. It's only because Louis is ill that Pig allows her to be on the couch. She can be his emotional support. 

Nick makes a face. “You're revolting, absolutely disgusting.”

He's not a fan of germs at all. They're very high up on the list of things he despises. He's making an exception, though, for Louis. Although, if he does end up getting ill, Louis will be held responsible.

“Be nice to me,” Louis says, sniffling. “I'm ill. I think my head is going to explode. Is that a thing? Can that happen? I've never read about it in the books, but it might be a thing. My brain will be all over your walls and the couch.”

Nick turns to look at Louis. He looks flushed. “I can't tell if you're on a fever-high or if this is your usual weirdness.” Just to make sure, he presses the palm of his hand against Louis' forehead. He does feel warmer than usual.

Louis closes his eyes and hums a little. “Your hand is so cold,” he says, obviously delighted. Nick, because he is a kind person, turns even more towards Louis to put his other hand on his cheek. It almost looks comical, how much of Louis' face he can cover with just his hands. Louis isn't entirely wrong when he says Nick's hands are large.

“I'm dying. This is making it a little better but I'm still dying,” Louis whines. “Please don't put me in a coffin and bury me. That freaks me out, I have no idea why people do that. Just give me to my boys, they'll know what to do.”

Nick turns his hand around and presses the back of it to Louis' other cheek. “You want me to give your dead body to your flatmates? Is that right?”

The nod Louis gives in response is slow and theatrical. Nick rolls his eyes.

“You're acting like you've never been poorly before. Just take some cough medicine and an aspirin and go to sleep. But not before you've eaten the damn soup I made.”

Louis opens his eyes to give Nick an accusing look. “Do you want to kill me? It tastes awful.”

“You asked me to make it!”

There's an actual pout on Louis' face now. It doesn't pair well with the sniffling. “I went on the internet and it said soup is good for you if you've got a cold. It didn't exactly mention that soup is lukewarm water with some leaves thrown in.”

That's just rude, Nick thinks, as he stares dejectedly at the perfectly fine bowl of soup he made. It's lukewarm now, sure, but it wasn't when he had presented it to Louis.

“Are you telling me you didn't know what soup was before?” Nick asks although it's probably just the fever getting to Louis. Maybe he should get him to actually go to bed, though that bed would have to be Nick’s. That's one way to ensure Nick will catch whatever Louis has, too.

“No,” Louis says slowly. “Of course I knew what soup was. Don't be stupid.”

“You're stupid,” Nick replies in lieu of anything better to say. Louis slumps against his shoulder again. Nick takes his hand off his cheek and places it on the back of his neck instead, causing Louis to let out a little sigh of relief.

Maybe Nick should consider a career as a human ice cube, if the radio DJ thing stops working out so well. There's an idea.

“I have a question,” Louis says after a while.

“Go ahead.”

“Why does the human body give in so easily to disease? Like, I don't think other species do that. Ever heard of an ill duck? I haven't. They don't exist. This is bullshit.”

Nick laughs at him. Hard. It actually takes a bit for him to calm down.

“You're such a weirdo,” he says, surprised by how fond he sounds. “And this is probably also the fever talking. Do you really want to be a duck? What do ducks even do but eat bread crumbs?”

“I like bread.”

Nick can't help but laugh again. “Alright, but if you start hallucinating about actually being a duck, I'm taking you to the hospital.”

Instead of answering, Louis just pretends to bite his shoulder.

– 

Nick wakes up with a crick in his neck, his hands still on Louis' neck and forehead and more snot and drool on his shirt than he cares to think about. Louis is fast asleep. Pig has left the room, possibly to go sleep in her own bed.

He's lucky Nick is fond of him, otherwise he'd push him off to go get changed right about now.

He fumbles his phone out of his pocket. It tells him it's almost 11 pm, which is past Nick's usual bedtime, and that he has seven unread messages. Without checking them he puts the phone on the couch table. It's probably just one of his WhatsApp groups.

Looking down at where Louis is still asleep, now half on his shoulder and half on the back of the couch, he says, more to himself than actually to Louis, “Are you really gonna make me carry you to my bed?”

Of course Louis doesn't answer, only sniffles a little in his sleep.

Normally Nick doesn't have a problem with simply letting people sleep on his couch if that's where they happen to drop off. Normally, however, these people are not poorly. Plus, there's still the whole crush situation that will probably never be resolved at the rate they're going. Nick isn't even impatient for it to be resolved, really, which is a bit strange because he's not usually very patient either.

It's just that he has this feeling that he shouldn't rush Louis before he's ready. He's not even sure where it’s coming from, it's just there and Nick is the type of person who goes with their instincts.

“You're a menace,” he tells a sleeping Louis as he slowly props him up.

He gets as far as two steps before he stumbles and half-drops Louis who of course immediately wakes up.

Sounding sleepy and even rougher than before, he asks what Nick is doing while gripping onto his shoulders surprisingly tightly.

“Was gonna carry you to bed,” Nick says “But come on, if you're awake, you can walk.”

Naturally, Louis complains about it, but he does start walking when Nick starts to lead him, an arm braced around his waist.

“Head hurts,” Louis mumbles, face pressed firmly against Nick's shoulder again. Nick is getting the feeling it's making Louis feel better somehow, – pressing his face against Nick, that is. Maybe it's comforting, who knows.

“It's gonna hurt even more if you walk into a door because you can't see where you’re going,” Nick says half-jokingly.

“You have me,” Louis replies quietly.

Nick does. He doesn't even know why but he does. He's not usually the caring-for-other-people type of person. Actually, he doesn't even like it when other people try to care for him. It makes him feel uncomfortable and awkward. It's not like that when it's Louis, though. A lot of things are different when it's Louis.

He manages as far as getting Louis to lie down and telling him to take off his trousers before Louis drops off again. He's not about to undress Louis while he's asleep, so he’ll have to live with sleeping in his jeans. Maybe he'll wake up during the night and take them off himself if he's uncomfortable. If not, Nick will probably have to deal with Louis' complaints tomorrow.

Regardless, Nick pulls the duvet over him, takes a spare set of sheets out of his wardrobe, and leaves him be.

– 

What he hadn't thought of was that he needed to get ready at five in the morning and Louis would never be awake at that time. Nick tries to be as quiet and stealthy as possible as he creeps into his own bedroom. There have been accusations that he picks out his clothes in the dark before but it's the first time it won't be a rather mean joke and instead reality. He’s just about managed to find a pair of socks when he hears Louis coughing on the bed. He freezes.

It goes on for a moment, Louis still sounding ill and exhausted, then it stops. He can hear Louis sitting up.

“Nick?”

Nick turns around, his hand still in his socks and underwear drawer.

“Morning, sunshine. Feeling better?” He pulls out the pair of socks and adds it to the pile of clothes in his other hand.

“It's the middle of the bloody night,” Louis says.

“Gotta go to work,” Nick replies lightly. He's not going to apologise for that.

Louis drops back down on the pillow again. “Forgot about that.” He coughs. Apparently the constant sniffling has turned into that now. Nick isn't sure which is worse.

“Did you sleep here with me?” Louis asks as Nick pulls out a pair of boxers as well.

“No. On the couch.”

He can almost hear Louis frown. Nick pulls out a pair of trousers at random.

“It's your bed,” Louis says.

“I'm aware.”

“You could have slept here. With me, I mean.”

Nick hopes it's dark enough that Louis can't make out his expression properly. This isn't necessarily a conversation he wants to have at five in the bloody morning when he has to get ready.

“Alright,” Nick says. “Uh, I mean, yeah. Okay. I'll remember that.”

Louis lets another few seconds pass before he asks, “Or did you not want to?”

Nick closes the door of his wardrobe and walks over to the bed, pile of clothes in hand. Louis' nose is red and he looks exhausted and like he should be asleep instead of asking obvious and stupid questions.

“No, I did not, in fact, want all your germs all over me. Otherwise, no, I wouldn't mind sharing a bed with you. Don't be stupid.”

He feels Louis' forehead with his hand again. It feels less warm than yesterday. Although that might also just be because Nick is not yet awake enough to tell the difference properly.

Before he takes his hand away again, he slowly strokes it through Louis' hair.

“Now go back to sleep, Rudolph. Some of us have a job to get to.”

Just as he's leaving the bedroom, Louis calls after him, “Who’s Rudolph?”

“The reindeer,” Nick calls back. “Because of your nose. It's all red, almost, like, glowing in the dark. I'm taking a shower!”

– 

#### 6\. He has never been kissed.

Nick is not at all texting instead of paying attention to the movie they're watching. He's only seen Love, Actually about a hundred times, so why would he be bored by watching it yet again? It's not like Nick isn't a fan of movies either way.

Louis hasn't seen it before.

Pixie has just asked him what he's doing home alone on a Saturday night. Nick has answered with the truth and cannot be bothered to check her reply – she'll just make fun of him, he knows, or find it terribly adorable – so he puts his phone down.

“Pass me my glass, will you?” he asks Louis absent-mindedly. He's very comfortable where he's sitting, crouched against the couch, Louis' legs thrown over his own. Louis is closer to the coffee table anyway, leaning over the side of the couch so he can pat Pig. Those two are still best friends. Nick half suspects Louis only comes over to see Pig rather than him.

When Louis doesn't react immediately, Nick reaches out and tickles his yet again bare feet. No reaction. Nick frowns and does it again. Louis' gaze is still fixed firmly on the TV screen.

“You're not ticklish?” Nick asks, poking him in the shin.

Louis turns around to face him. “What?”

“You're not ticklish.”

“What's that?” Louis asks.

“Ticklish? As in, I tickle you and you laugh?” There is no way Louis doesn't know what tickling is. He demonstrates it again, just to be sure. Louis still doesn't react to it.

“Oh, yeah. Sure I know what tickling is. I heard you wrong,” Louis says quickly and shrugs. “No, I'm not.”

“Weirdo.” Nick doesn't mean to sound so terribly fond, it just happens. “Hey, pass me my glass.”

“Can't you go two minutes without demanding my attention?” Louis asks and heaves a great put-upon sigh. He does, however, reach out and hand Nick his glass of pineapple juice anyway. Nick is still not drinking anything alcoholic in front of Louis, just to be sure. Pig whines when Louis' hand leaves her back but Louis just shushes her.

“No,” Nick replies happily, taking a sip. He pokes Louis in the shin again just to see him roll his eyes. Louis does exactly that, but doesn't turn to look at Nick.

As Louis seems determined to watch the movie and ignore Nick, he leaves him be for a bit, opting instead to concentrate on what's actually happening himself.

Hugh Grant as the prime minister is just about to get revealed in front of the whole school audience as he kisses that sweet brunette girl who works for him. It's possible Nick can't be bothered to remember their names. He knows, however, that it means the movie is coming to an end soon.

“I don't really get why people do that,” Louis says. “It looks a bit weird, to be honest.”

Nick raises his eyebrows. “Do what?”

“Kiss. Make out. Whatever you wanna call it,” Louis says, sounding impatient that Nick didn't get what he meant immediately.

“Well,” Nick says just to stall. “Kissing's great. Surely you've tried it before.”

“No.”

“What do you mean?” Nick asks, sitting up properly to look at Louis. He's shocked. “You've never kissed anyone? No way.”

Nick usually isn't one to judge – everyone in their own time and all that – but Louis is 22 and _hot_. Nick has properly known him for a good while now and he's still shocked by just how attractive he is. Even when he had been ill and leaving snot all over Nick's everything, he had still been better looking than just about anyone Nick has ever met. There is no way no one has ever tried to kiss him. It's just not possible.

“What? Is that weird, too?” Louis asks, bristling.

“No, of course it's not. Come on, it's really alright.”

Louis crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“Don't be pissed off now. I was just surprised. It's okay. Some people just don't wanna do all that stuff and they don't want to kiss anyone and that's perfectly fine.”

It _is_ perfectly fine, as far as Nick is concerned. If that's how Louis feels, then Nick will be okay with that. Doesn't mean he can't be surprised by it.

Louis scoffs. “Did you even listen to me? I said I've never tried it before, not that I don't want to.”

Nick is officially confused. “So you're telling me that you want to be kissed but no one has ever kissed you? I don't believe that.”

Louis kicks him in the side. Not very hard, but still. “Believe what you want, Grimshaw.”

“So,” Nick says, trying to sort out his thoughts. “You do want to kiss someone?”

Louis stares at him defiantly, his chin raised just a bit. The movie is definitely forgotten. Louis nods.

There's a moment of silence. Nick doesn't move.

Yet again, Louis rolls his eyes at him. “How much more of an invitation do you need?” he asks. “Will you kiss me now or not?”

It can't be healthy, the way Nick's heart resumes beating at twice the speed than before. “Will you get mad at me after?”

Louis takes his legs off Nick's and puts his feet on the floor so he can move closer. Pig makes another unhappy sound at the now complete loss of attention but they both ignore her for the time being. “Depends. On how good it is, really.”

“I am quite good at it,” Nick reassures him. Louis raises his eyebrows and Nick gets the hint to shut up and do something.

He places his hand on the back of Louis' neck – a bit like he had when Louis had been ill – to pull him closer.

“Don't stare at me. Close your eyes.”

Louis huffs but does as he's told.

It's quite obvious that Louis is an absolute beginner at kissing – so he hadn't lied after all – but for some reason that doesn't mean it's bad at all. Louis is hesitant, mostly letting Nick take the lead. Nick doesn't dare use his tongue just yet. After a moment of Louis' arms just hanging at his sides, he puts his hands on Nick's shoulders, gripping on tightly.

When they separate, Louis doesn't let Nick go far, still holding onto him. He looks thoughtful.

“Do that again,” he says.

Nick can't help but smile at that and whisper “bossy” against Louis' lips. He complies immediately. If this is his only chance to touch and kiss Louis, then he will damn well make use of it, even though heartbreak might wait for him at the other end. (And he startles, in his mind, at the surprising revelation that he's in too deep, that heartbreak is a very real, tangible possibility for him.)

It's Pig who interrupts them. She is fed up with not getting any attention from her favourite and stands up to place her paws on Louis' thighs, whining for attention.

“Go away, Pig dog,” Nick gently chastises her. She gives him an accusing look but sits back down, well trained at least.

“Sorry,” Louis tells her. “We're a bit busy right now.”

Of course, loving Louis infinitely more and therefore listening to him better, she turns around and calmly walks over to her dog bed to lie down.

Louis turns back to Nick. His eyes are brighter than usual, but perhaps that's just a trick of the light. He's looking at Nick like he's seeing him for the first time.

“Okay, so that wasn't too bad.”

– 

#### 7\. He curses – well, oddly.

Louis apparently does not understand what it means when someone's on the phone.

“Nick, I'm hungry. Pig is, too.”

Nick shushes him and turns away to sit on his bed.

“Who was that?” his mum asks, excitement in her voice.

“Just Louis,” Nick replies. “How's dad?”

The distraction technique doesn't work. “Your new neighbour? The one you've been mentioning so much?”

Nick glances at Louis who is now sitting on the bedroom floor, looking like he's having a silent conversation with Pig who is right next to him. There's no way he can hear what Nick's mum is saying from all the way over by the door.

“Yeah, that one. It hasn't been that much.” It has.

“Is he over at yours?”

“No, he shouted it from his flat all the way up to mine. It's a thing. We do it all the time,” he replies.

Louis looks up, arching his eyebrows. “Who's that?”

Nick ignores him for the time being.

“Don't get sarcastic with me. I just want to know about your new boyfriend. Don't want to find out from listening to your show.”

“Mum,” Nick says. That answers Louis' question as well, at least. If he's still listening. “He's not.” Clearly Nick can't go into detail with Louis right there. The truth is he doesn't know what Louis is. They have integrated kissing, touching, and cuddling into their daily routine – they have a daily routine, in the first place – and they've even been out and about on kind-of-but-not-really dates and yet Nick doesn't know for sure what they are. He doesn't feel the need to label it just yet either. It's not like they're in a rush.

There's also the fact that Liam and Zayn might very well kill him in his sleep if he dared call himself Louis' anything. Even if he doesn't do it in front of them. They'd know, somehow.

Thankfully, she drops the topic but not without urging him to tell her as soon as 'their status changes'. Their status.

“This isn't Facebook,” he says, but she's already moved onto his aunt Cassidy and their three boys and how the oldest one just bought a house.

He lets her talk, adding small comments only occasionally. Louis is giving Pig belly rubs. It's really no wonder she loves Louis the most, although it's still terribly unfair. Nick is the one who takes her out on walks – although Louis is with them most of the time, he'll admit that. He's even made it into a few gossip papers wondering who he is. Thankfully, Louis doesn't seem to have read them and none of his friends have pointed it out to him or Nick himself either.

“And her second boy is getting married in the summer,” his mum says. “Phillip, you remember him? He's marrying his girlfriend. We're all invited. Wait, I'll just get the invitation and read it to you.”

“Don't bother, mum, I'm sure it's like any other wedding invitation.”

She shushes him and tells him she'll be right back.

Nick tries not to sigh. He lowers the phone from his ear and looks at Louis.

“She's gone to get an invitation to read to me.”

Louis cocks his head to the side a little. “You keep pulling faces,” he says.

“Huh?”

“You keep pulling faces while she talks. Like your mum's annoying you or something.”

Nick puts a hand over the speaker. His mum might come back at any moment.

“She's not,” he says. “I don't necessarily care all that much about all of our relatives' life stories, that's all.”

“Why don't you hang up, then?”

Nick gives him a look. “As if you'd just hang up on your mum, love. She's my mum, of course I'll listen. Plus, half the time it's me telling her about stuff she doesn't care about. So it's only fair.”

Pig whines as Louis stops petting her and gets up, intently staring at Nick as he walks over.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Has he said something wrong again?

“I'm just surprised that you can be, you know, kind of nice,” Louis says, plopping down next to Nick.

Of course his mum chooses to come back right as Louis is trying to kiss Nick.

“I'm still on the phone,” Nick hisses, shoving Louis' face away with his entire hand. It's not like he doesn't want to, Louis knows that. It doesn't matter, though, because Louis pouts anyway.

“What is it?” his mum asks.

“Uh, just Louis,” Nick says quickly. “He wants to have tea and he's too lazy to cook. Don't mind him.”

Louis pokes him in the side for that one. Nick wraps his arm around his shoulders and pulls him in close, burying his nose in Louis' hair for just a moment.

Nick's mum reads him the wedding invitation. It's a fairly standard, non-descriptive one and Nick isn't sure why he needed to be hear it but he doesn't say that.

“You can bring Louis,” his mum says.

Nick startles. He looks down at Louis but he either hasn't heard the question or doesn't mind because he just keeps on making faces in Pig's direction again.

“Maybe. I don't know yet,” Nick murmurs.

His mum laughs. “I'll let you boys get on with tea, then. Say hi to your Louis from me.”

She hangs up before Nick can say that he's not ‘his Louis’.

“My mum says hi,” he dutifully relays the message.

“Hi, Nick's mum,” Louis says and pulls out of Nick's grip to stand up. “Will you cook now?”

Nick sighs and gets up as well. “Only if you feed Pig while I do.”

“I did that an hour ago,” Louis says smugly, picking Pig up off the floor. She doesn't like being carried around all that much but is strangely fine with it when it's Louis who does it. “Haven't I, my girl?” he says, grinning down at her. She licks his nose.

“She has fixed feeding times, stop fucking with them.”

Louis' only answer is a shrug as he walks out, Pig still in his arms.

The next time he sees Louis and Pig is when Nick has already made a head start on dinner. He's just put a pot of water on the stove to boil potatoes in when Louis comes up behind him.

When Louis wraps his arms around Nick from behind, Nick simply rests his hands on top of where Louis' are crossed over his stomach.

“Smells good,” Louis says.

“There's nothing to smell yet.” Nick has barely even started.

“Maybe I wasn't talking about the food, loser,” Louis retorts and proceeds to bite Nick's neck.

“Do you want tea? That's not the way to get it,” Nick says in what is an incredible demonstration of willpower, he thinks.

“Boo,” Louis says but lets go of him. “Alright, I agree. Food takes priority.”

It doesn't necessarily in Nick's eyes but Louis will just be grumpy and whiny later if Nick abandons dinner in favour of snogging him senseless, he knows that.

Louis steps away from behind Nick to stand next to him.

“Oh, look, it glows all red,” he says excitedly and reaches out.

“Lou--”

It's too late. Louis does actually touch the burning hot hob. Nick can't believe his own eyes.

It gets weirder.

Upon touching it and burning himself badly, Louis lets out a sound. A screech. A curse? Nick isn't even sure. It's not like anything he's ever heard before although it does sound distinctly like words but not from any language he knows.

Louis stares at his burned fingertips as Nick stares at him.

“Fuck,” Louis finally whispers.

Nick springs into action. He drags Louis over to the sink, turns on the water as cold as it gets and pushes Louis' hand under the stream.

“What is wrong with you? There's a pot on the stove! It glows red so let you know that it's on and not to touch it under any circumstances!”

Louis is biting down on his lip, a pained expression on his face.

“I didn't think,” he says slowly. “It hurts.”

“Yeah, clearly you didn't. Keep your hand there, I'll get something for the burn.”

On his way out, he turns off the stove and takes the pot off of it. When he returns, Louis is still standing by the sink. He looks up.

“Now it hurts because it's cold as hell,” he complains.

“Good.” Nick puts the burn ointment tube down next to the sink. “What even was that sound you made?”

Louis frowns. “What sound?”

“When you burned yourself? That sound?”

“I was just cursing? You've heard cursing before, surely.”

“Not like that.” And he really hasn't. But Louis doesn't delve any further into the topic, disregarding it completely.

“Because of your stupid stove being stupidly hot,” Louis continues, sending an angry glare towards said stove.

“Not to be rude,” Nick says, turning off the cold water. “But you're a bit useless sometimes.”

“Am not.”

Two of Louis' fingertips are an angry red still, but that might as well just be from the ice cold water. Nick applies the ointment quite generously and says, “You really are. Why would you touch the stove?”

“It hurts,” Louis says, staring down at his hand.

“Don't be whiny now,” Nick warns him. He's still a bit shell-shocked, both from seeing Louis just touch the burning hot stove like it's nothing and from that weird supposed-curse that followed. It's all a bit much.

“Why are you mad at me? I didn't burn you, did I?”

“No, but it was a stupid thing to do. And I don't really fancy watching you burn your damn fingers off.”

“Well, sorry. I apologise,” Louis says, petulant as anything. “And I won't complain about the pain. Happy?”

“Not really.” Nick pulls Louis into his arms. “You're an odd duck,” he says.

“You're an odd...some other animal. Monkey, maybe. Giraffe! They're unnecessarily tall, just like you.”

Nick doesn't even try not to laugh. “I'll take it.”

Leaning up, Louis steals a kiss from Nick, and then two more. “Should we order in? I'll even pay.”

“Yes, we should. I'm not turning on the stove again with you around.”

– 

#### 8\. He ~~pulverised someone~~ ~~made someone explode~~ did something to someone. Nick isn't really sure. It's nothing good, though.

It happens like this.

Nick had been out with Pixie, Gillian and a few others but had promised to come by Louis' flat to come get him before he went to bed. It's a proper couple-y thing to do, to go and get Louis, just so they can share a bed. Nick is trying hard not to think about it. The fact that they still haven't had sex – Nick is trying to give Louis time, his first kiss had only been a couple of weeks ago – makes it worse, in a way. The only purpose of it, then, is cuddling. That's very boyfriend-y behaviour.

It's Niall who opens the door. “Hiya, Grimmy. He's in his room.” He walks back over to the couch and plops down next to Zayn, immediately cuddling into him. Zayn acknowledges Nick with a nod that Nick returns.

The problem is that Nick doesn't knock. Louis doesn't knock on his door anymore, either, so Nick doesn't feel the need to. He really should have knocked.

Louis is standing with his back to Nick, facing someone. Something? No, it's definitely a someone. It's a tall someone wearing some kind of black cloak with a hood like someone straight out of Lord of the Rings. They're not talking to each other at all.

Just as Nick thinks about making his presence known, Louis picks up a long silver device from where it's lying on his bed. Nick thinks it's Louis' phone at first but it's too long and thin for that.

Louis aims the rounded end at the tall someone. After a moment, it lights up bright blue. Nick has absolutely no idea what's going on.

The tall someone – explodes, for lack of a better word. It's less violent than that, though. From one moment to the next, the bright blue light reaches him and he goes up into thousands of small black particles. They hang motionless in the air for the longest second of Nick's life, then they just vanish. Just like that, the tall figure Louis was supposedly talking to, or threatening, or doing whatever with, is gone.

Nick screams.

Louis whirls around, his eyes wide. He looks normal as ever, looks the same as always. But he's just – has he just killed someone?

“Nick,” Louis breathes out, panic all over his face and voice.

“You--” There are no words. For the first time, Nick has no words. He has nothing he could possibly say to Louis.

So he turns around and runs right back out of the room, past Zayn and Niall, still closely intertwined on the couch, out of the flat and up the stairs.

Do they know? Do they know what Louis just did? Is it the first time? Is it a regular occurrence? What _did_ Louis just do?

Louis shouts his name just as Nick slams the door of his own flat closed behind him. His hands shake as he locks the door from the inside. As he backs away from it slowly, Louis starts banging on it from the other side.

Nick is scared. It's not something he'd ever thought he'd say about Louis. Harmless, silly Louis.

“Nick! Open the door!”

Pig comes running into the room to see what the ruckus is about. Nick sits down on the floor and pulls her onto his lap.

“What the hell,” he whispers into her ear. She twitches.

“Nick! Please. Please, open the door. I just want to talk to you.”

Nick is shaking. He can't answer, can't do anything. It's Louis. It's his Louis, the one he wanted to be his official boyfriend not ten minutes ago. Now he doesn't even know who Louis is at all.

“Nick? I know you're there. Are you okay? You didn't, like, faint or something? Please, just talk to me. I can explain!”

“You killed someone,” Nick says very, very quietly. Then, louder, he repeats it, “You killed someone!”

There's a sound like Louis just banged his head against the door or slumped against it with his whole body. Can he break it open if he wants to? Surely he could if he asked his friends for help. Maybe he could do it on his own as well. Nick doesn't know anything about him.

“I didn't! God, Nick, I promise. On everything! I promise I didn't kill anyone.”

“I just saw you do it!” Nick sounds hysterical. He is hysterical.

“That wasn't what you think it was. Let me explain!”

“Go away,” Nick says, pulling Pig even closer.

“Not unless you listen to me.”

Nick is never leaving his flat again, ever. He's not letting Louis in, either.

When Nick doesn't reply, Louis starts banging on the door again. Nick tries covering his ears but his hands are still shaking.

“Stop it! Go away, Louis. I mean it. I'm gonna call the police if you don't leave me alone. I'll tell them what you did.”

Maybe that's what he ought to be doing, anyway. But he's not sure how he would even explain what happened. My not-boyfriend pulverised someone with some kind of technological device? Is that even possible? Nick isn't exactly up-to-date on weapon technology. He doesn't know.

“Please,” Louis says, sounding desperate and small and suspiciously close to tears.

Nick doesn't answer.

– 

The next morning Louis is still there. Nick almost turns right back around to lock himself into his flat again. He has to go into work, though. He wouldn't know how to explain his absence without lying. Plus, Louis is fast asleep, sitting propped up against the wall right next to Nick's door. His chin has sunk down on his chest and he's snoring softly. He looks as innocent as anything.

Trying not to look at him and being as quiet as possible, Nick locks his door and walks past him, down the stairs. His heart doesn't stop racing as he walks past the door to Louis' flat. He doesn't know if his flatmates are possibly dangerous as well. They must have noticed Louis doing...whatever he does. Nick still doesn't know. Maybe he's some kind of secret agent? Or maybe a hitman. It would possibly explain some of the odd things he had noticed about Louis.

It also makes Nick want to throw up.

He doesn't trust himself with driving his car, so he takes the tube to work instead, feeling safer amongst people – even amongst those out and about at this early hour.

– 

He still ends up lying. The whole team notices almost right away. The fact that every single time his smile drops as soon as he's done with a link might be a give-away.

He makes up some terrible lie about feeling under the weather. Fiona gives him a look. She probably thinks he's been out too long again and is hungover now. Nick has barely slept at all and he doesn't care. He just wants to get through the day.

– 

When he gets home, Louis is gone. It should feel like a relief but doesn't.

“We may need to move,” he tells a sleepy Pig.

– 

He doesn't see any of the inhabitants of the flat below for days, after that.

Maybe they’ve moved? It might be possible, now that Nick has found out Louis' terrible secret. Although he hasn't found out anything, really. He still has no clue what even happened. He keeps going over it in his mind. Was that even a person in the black coat? He couldn't make them out properly. And what did Louis do to them? He's been on Google as well and it's been anything but useful. “Pulverising technology”, “witnessed someone explode”, and “how do you know if someone has killed someone” were all fruitless searches. Nick should be less surprised than he is.

He tries to get on with life.

– 

“I'm not kidding. See, I've got my phone out. I am going to call the police if you don't fuck off right now.”

So much for that. Apparently Louis knows where he works just like Liam and Zayn do. Unlike Liam and Zayn, however, he's waited outside the building for Nick to come out. It's clever, Nick will admit. He can't call security on him out here on the street.

“I don't want to harm you,” Louis says, holding his hands out in a gesture of defeat. “You can search me, I haven't even got anything with me to harm you with. I've never harmed anyone, actually.”

Nick snorts but he's anything but amused. “I saw you.”

“That didn't harm anyone. Will you let me explain now?”

Nick just wants to get to his car and drive far, far away. Seeing Louis' face is much like throwing salt into an open wound. It burns. He looks so harmless.

“I cannot possibly imagine any way you could explain away what happened.”

There's a tentative smile on Louis' face. Nick wants to run away. He's never felt the urge to flee so many times in his life.

“Let me worry about that,” Louis says. “Will you come with me?”

“Come with you? Are you-- you must be insane. I'm not going anywhere with you.”

He ignores the hurt look Louis gives him. He's got no right to look like that.

“Please. It's a public space. We'll take the tube there. There'll be people around all the time.”

“Why can't you explain it here?”

Louis sighs. “I need to show you something.”

Slowly, Nick types 999 into his phone and shows the screen to Louis. “I'm keeping it like that. One wrong move and I'll call. Got it?”

Louis nods hastily. “Yes. But I don't like that you're scared of me.”

“Well,” Nick says. What can he say to that? He doesn't like it either. But it's necessary. “Let's go, then.”

It's the most awkward tube ride of Nick's life. The bus ride on the 129 to Greenwich Town Centre is not much better. Louis keeps shooting him sad looks. He's not supposed to be _sad_. Worried that Nick will expose him, maybe. But not sad and dejected.

“Are you a secret agent?” Nick asks as they get off at the museum. Louis is about to explain it all to him anyway, he knows – or at least hopes –, but Nick needs to know now.

Louis giggles. He honest to god giggles. Like this is a moment or a situation to giggle at. Nick wants to hit him on the back of the head but he's afraid of touching him.

It's an odd new feeling to have about the guy he's been itching to touch for months and months now.

They enter the museum. Nick looks around to make sure they're not alone. They're not, luckily, there's a few school kids in groups and security people milling about.

“No,” Louis says, finally. “I'm really not.”

“Why are we at the museum?”

“Can you be patient for once in your life?”

Nick raises his eyebrows at him. Definitely not the time for teasing. It might never be the time for teasing again, ever.

“Sorry,” Louis murmurs. “You'll see in a minute.”

They enter the planetarium. The part they're in is a big, dark room, laid out like the smaller version of a cinema with cushy seats in rows and rows. Instead of a ceiling the room has a huge screen hanging overhead that's showing high quality pictures of thousands and thousands of stars.

Nick freezes.

“There's someone at the very back there,” Louis says, pointing to where Nick can vaguely make out an old man scribbling furiously into his notebook. “We're not alone.”

“Not sure he's gonna protect me.”

“You don't need protection.”

Nick isn't sure why he's even here. He should not be here. He should have gone straight home, ignoring Louis entirely. Maybe he should have called the police days ago, when it actually happened.

It's Louis, though. It's Louis and there's this small stupid, naive part of Nick that wants to believe it. The part that wants Louis to come up with an explanation that will make the whole thing seem entirely normal and nothing to worry about.

Nick has no preservation instincts to speak of, it seems. He plops down in one of the seats.

“What you saw, it. Um, it wasn't that I killed anyone. What you saw was me beaming my supervisor back home,” Louis says in a rush.

“You what now?”

Louis' voice drops down to a whisper and he leans closer to Nick. “It's a beaming device. It takes apart someone's molecules and puts them together somewhere else. You call it beaming. That's what I did. It didn't kill my supervisor.”

Has Louis completely lost it?

“What on earth are you on about? Beaming isn't real, this isn't Star Trek. And what supervisor?”

“Look up,” Louis says. Nick does, out of instinct. “Do you see that fourth star in the second row from the bottom?”

Nick points upwards to a small glowing orb. The stars all look the same to him, no matter how high quality the pictures. “That one?”

“No,” Louis says. He reaches out, presumably to fix where Nick is pointing by guiding him, but freezes just short of touching his hand. He points to another star just right of that one instead. “That one.”

“Yeah, I see it.”

Louis takes a deep breath and then exhales. “That's where I'm from.”

Nick's gaze drops down to Louis so fast that he can hear a snapping noise in the back of his neck.

Louis is still staring up at the star, his face illuminated only by the slight glow coming off the thousands of stars.

“It's my home planet. The other's, too. Harry, Niall, Liam, and Zayn. We're all from there.”

After a moment, Louis looks away and over at Nick. “Do you understand? I'm not from here. I'm not from this planet.”

The inside of Nick's head is curiously empty. There's just nothing.

“Are you honest to god trying to tell me you're an _alien_?”

Louis makes a face. “Not my favourite term in the world but yeah. Principally that's what I am.”

“And your friends as well,” Nick says extremely slowly.

Louis nods.

“Are you kidding? You're having me on.”

“I'm not! I swear! I don't know what you call it and I can't tell you our name for it because you wouldn't understand our language but that's my home planet! Nick, please, I'm not lying.”

“Your language,” Nick repeats.

Louis nods. “You've heard it before! Remember when I burned my fingers on your stove? I cursed, like I said, but not in English. Not in any earth language at all.”

Nick remembers the odd screeching sound Louis had made all too well.

“I'm on drugs,” Nick says nonsensically. “Or you're on drugs. Someone here is on drugs. Possibly both of us.”

“No one is,” Louis says soothingly. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you before.”

Nick puts his head in his hands.

“This isn't true.”

Louis lets him have a few minutes of silence to freak out on his own. When Nick finally looks up again, Louis is looking up at the star – his _home planet_ – with an almost longing expression on his face.

“I don't believe it,” Nick says. “It's too weird. I really can't.”

Louis turns to him. “Let me prove it.”

It might be that Nick is a bit stupid or that he's just in too much shock – _again_ – but he follows Louis to the bathroom in a daze.

Louis carefully checks that there's no one in any of the cubicles. Then, he pulls the long silver device out of his pocket.

Nick backs off a few steps until his back hits the row of sinks. “You said you hadn’t brought anything to harm me with!”

“I haven’t,” Louis says patiently. “This is just for beaming. Here.”

After fiddling with the device for a moment, he holds it out to Nick.

“I'm not touching that.”

“Nick, please.”

“Why would I touch it?”

“You're gonna beam me. Not far, mind, but just from here to over there. I fixed the settings already. Just press down on that green bit, there.”

“I will not beam you anywhere, oh god, Louis.”

He tries to edge further away from the thing but there's nowhere to go with the sinks behind him.

“I'm trying to prove to you that I'm telling the truth. I didn't kill anyone. I'd never harm a human being, I'd rather die myself. We came here because we've been watching you for years, just observing. Now we want to get to know you. Your race, I mean. None of us would ever do anything to any of you.”

Louis looks suspiciously close to tears. Nick feels backed into a corner – he almost is, literally – and he doesn't know what to do. Louis keeps talking.

“I need you to believe me. I need you to not be scared of me. Nick, come on. You know me, you do. Everything else you've seen of me was just me. And you liked me, I know you did. I can't lose that.”

Biting down on his lower lip so hard it hurts, Nick comes to a decision. He takes the device from Louis and points it at him in exactly the way he's seen Louis do it to his 'supervisor'.

“The green bit, yeah?”

Louis nods, his eyes bright.

“I swear, Louis, if this actually kills you, I'm going to come into the afterlife and kick your ass,” Nick says without making any sense at all. He's terrified and confused, okay. He's allowed to not make sense.

He presses down on the green bit.

Nick doesn't know what he expects but for some reason it's not the exact same thing he saw in Louis' bedroom. Naturally, that's exactly what happens.

Louis explodes into thousands of colourful little particles that hang in the air for a moment. The only reason Nick doesn't scream is that he's biting down hard on his lip again. He can taste blood.

Then, there's a light in one of the cubicles. Dropping the device, Nick storms over.

He watches the tail-end of Louis being put together bit by bit. In the blink of an eye, he's there again, whole as if nothing had ever happened.

“Fuck me,” Nick whispers to himself. The cocky smile Louis gives him for just a moment is all too familiar.

“You weren't lying.” Nick can't help it. He reaches out and touches Louis' shoulder. He feels solid and real. That doesn't change when Nick's hand moves onto his cheek.

“I wasn't,” Louis agrees, staring back at Nick.

“You're an alien,” Nick says.

“I am,” Louis agrees again.

Nick drops his hand.

“I need to go.”

“No, please don't--”

“I need to go,” Nick repeats.

With one last glance at Louis, Nick turns around and leaves.

– 

#### 9\. He's an alien.

Nick doesn't sleep for three nights.

– 

#### 10\. Nick can't stop missing him.

“You need to talk to him,” Aimee says like it's the easiest thing in the world.

That's the problem when the guy you really like turns out to be an alien. You can't exactly tell your friends about it, so you have to make up some story about how you had a row about your relationship status. Nick hates lying.

“No, I don't,” Nick says petulantly. He pulls Pig to his chest and cuddles her. She's incredibly patient, that one. He's also her favourite again ever since Louis left. There's a plus side to everything.

“You're moping.”

Nick pulls a face at her. “I'm not.”

“You are. You so clearly like the guy. More than that, even. And you're seriously letting your fear of being grown up and committing stop you from being with him?”

Nick sighs. Aimee puts a hand on his shoulder and slowly starts rubbing.

“You're a mess,” she says. “I can't wait to meet this Louis.”

Pig starts wiggling, trying to escape his arms. He lets her down off the couch and properly sits up.

“I don't know what to say to him,” Nick admits. It's the truth.

“Start with saying that you're an idiot.”

“It's his fault, too. It's mainly his fault!” Nick isn't the lying alien pretending to be a human in this relationship. He's entirely blameless.

“I know. You're still an idiot. Then you tell him you want to be with him and if he doesn't say yes to that offer, he's making the biggest mistake of his life because you're everything anyone could ever ask for.”

She kisses his temple. Nick smiles. He's got good friends, at least.

“Good way to get into his good books again, Aims. Totally doesn't sound arrogant or anything.”

She shrugs. “It's the truth. Now text him to ask if he's got time to talk.”

It's been days. Nick is tired all the time, his head is a mess of unanswered questions, and he misses Louis. He misses him so badly it's stupid.

He takes out his phone and texts Louis, _'Got time to talk?'_

The response comes not two minutes later.

_'am at uni but ill be there in half an hour !! dont go away'_

_'Are you walking out of a lecture right now??'_

_’yeah’_ , is Louis' answer.

Aimee, reading over his shoulder, laughs. “Whipped, the both of you.”

Nick sends him the devil emoji and tells him to come to his flat when he gets home. He stares at the alien emoji in the row below for way longer than necessary, then closes the chat altogether.

Aimee stays for a while longer just to help keep Nick's nerves calm. It doesn't help at all but he appreciates the effort nonetheless. When she leaves, she does so with a kiss on the cheek for him and a loving pat for Pig.

The flat is eerily silent after that.

“I still don't know what to say to him,” Nick tells Pig as he sits back down on the couch.

She trots over and drops her head on his knees, looking up at him.

“You're my best friend,” he tells her. She doesn't answer but the look in her eyes clearly says that she feels the same way.

The knock on the door startles them both.

“It's open.”

Pig is at Louis' side as quick as lightning when he steps into the flat.

“Hello, my girl,” Louis greets her, genuinely sounding happy to see her. His eyes, however, don't leave Nick's face, even as he crouches down to greet her properly.

“Can you talk to her?” Nick asks without meaning to. He thinks back to their first meeting and how Pig had been responsible for it, really. It's not what he had planned to ask first, but it's as good a place to start as any, he supposes.

“Not as such,” Louis says. “There's just this, I don't know, understanding. I understand what she's thinking and feeling, I guess.”

Nick nods. Alright. He can deal with that.

“Any other super powers I should know about, perhaps?”

Louis looks wounded. “Can I come over and sit next to you?” he asks, oddly shy.

Nick nods and waits for him to sit down. They're not touching but Louis is right there. It's a bit much.

“It's not a super power. And no, there's nothing else.”

“Sure? Nothing? Reading my thoughts, maybe? Manipulating me into liking you somehow?”

He knows he's being meaner than he wants to be. Louis' face crumbles, just for a split second.

“I can't do that. And even if I could, I wouldn't. I was just being me. That's who you liked.”

Nick doesn't correct the past tense form, even though he should.

“Okay,” he says because he can't argue the point. “So why are you here? You and the others? Not here, specifically, but on earth?”

“We've been watching you guys for years. We're, uh, well, the boys and I are, like, scientists? That's the closest word to it, I guess. We've been studying human culture for ages. And now we're here to get to know you. We're the first team to have been sent here.”

There's a hint of pride in Louis' voice. It's probably a big deal. He's basically Neil Armstrong, then.

“Have you been studying me?” Nick can't help but ask.

“Well, I mean at first, but--”

“Lovely,” Nick interrupts him. “I've been a lab rat.”

Louis shakes his head wildly. “Will you listen to me? At first, yeah. When we met and became friends. But then I didn't care about that anymore. I stopped observing you and I started just – just being with you.”

Nick drags a hand through his hair. “Louis,” he says.

“I've got people at Uni. They’re the ones I observe for my studies. I haven't mentioned you in my reports for months. Not a single word. You can – well, no, you can't check them because you won't be able to understand. But it's true!”

“I don't know what to believe.”

It's all too much. Louis who had once touched a burning hot stove because it glowed nicely is now suddenly a super scientist sent to explore a strange planet. It's just. It's a lot.

“I'm being honest. See, I had to lie to the others about it as well. It felt awful. They started questioning why I was spending so much time with you. And they thought you might get in the way of the mission or you might have found out the truth and might be using me for information. So I said you were a good opportunity to get real unfiltered information, just to get them off my back.”

“That's not a good way to convince me you've not been using me for information for your studies or whatever.”

“But I haven't,” Louis says.

“Your boys came and threatened me at work. Well, Liam and Zayn did.”

Louis shakes his head. “They wanted to find out whether you already knew the truth. They told me after. I'm sorry.”

Nick shakes his head. “Well, that one's not your fault, right?”

“I told them,” Louis barrels on. “I told them the truth after we, um, after we kissed for the first time.”

Nick might be masochistic but he asks anyway, “What did you tell them?”

Looking down at his knees, Louis says, “That I really, really liked you and that I'm not studying you at all. That I haven't mentioned you in the reports and that I wasn't going to.”

“How did they react?”

“Zayn was a bit angry. Harry thinks you're amazing so he thought it was brilliant. Niall and Liam were more neutral but in the end they all said it was fine. Now they even tease me about you all the time.” He frowns. “Well, not as much anymore, but before.”

Pig returns from wherever she went to lay her head on Louis' knees. He smiles tentatively and pats her back.

“I've got another question,” Nick says. It's a bit of a lie. He's got about a hundred more questions.

“Well, ask it, then. I'm gonna answer honestly, pinky promise.”

“This,” Nick gesticulates to Louis' – well, everything. “That's not your real body, is it? That's not what you look like?”

He's thought about it and he just can't imagine a planet that far away where creatures walk around that look exactly like humans. Whose bodies function exactly the same way. It just makes no sense. He doesn't want to know about whose body Louis might be possessing or however he came to get it. But he needs to find out.

“It is my body,” Louis replies. “It's not what I look like back at home, no. But this is my body. Another team, our colleagues, they built it for me. It works exactly like yours. It felt a bit strange at first but now it's just my body. It feels normal now.”

“Well, that explains why you look like that, then. I'd have given myself super model looks, too, to be honest.”

Louis smiles his first smile, almost a grin. “I didn't choose the appearance, exactly. I'd have made myself taller.”

Nick laughs. “Of course.”

Louis lets out a long breath. “What now?” he asks.

The smile drops off Nick's face. “I don't know,” he answers honestly. “There's so much more we need to talk about. There's so many things you need to explain to me.”

There's something like hope in Louis' eyes at the implication that they will talk again. That Nick won't run off and pretend he doesn't exist.

“But this is a lot. You're not human. I don't know how to deal with it. I've got no idea how to go about this.”

“I want you to know that it's not easy for me either, I mean...” Louis stops and clears his throat. “I don't want your pity or anything. But just understand that I didn't know.”

“Didn't know what? You knew you were an alien, Louis.”

“Shut up. That's not what I mean. I didn't know that it was possible to feel this way, alright? No one told me. No one fucking warned me about this. There should have been a manual somewhere. 'How To Not Fall For Tall Humans With Cute Laughs' or something, I don't know. I wasn't aware that I could even fall for anyone, that this was a possibility.”

Nick is holding his breath for some odd reason he can't pinpoint.

“I'm so in over my head, Nick. I wanted you to know the truth about me but I couldn't risk losing you. And now I've gone and fucked it all up and you're at mad at me. You've got every right to be mad at me, I guess – that's what Liam says, at least. And the weirdest thing is I still can't stop thinking of you. You probably hate my guts or are disgusted that you ever touched me in the first place or whatever. But I'm just thinking about holding your hand again, like, all the time.”

Louis presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I should have protected myself from feeling like this,” He pauses. “Being a human is so damn messy.”

“Shit,” Nick says, feeling oddly exposed even though it was Louis who had laid his soul bare for Nick to see. “It really, really is.”

This is insane, Nick thinks. He doesn't even know where Louis is from or what he really looks like or anything at all about him or his home, really. He really only knows one thing for sure.

“I just like you so much, you idiot.”

Louis lowers his hands from his face. He doesn't sob but it's a close thing.

“Tell me I can kiss you again? Not like, right now, but one day. Would that be fine again when you've thought it all through and I've answered all your questions? Do you think?”

“I don't know,” Nick says, feeling light-headed. “Right now sounds pretty alright to me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”


End file.
